1/29/2009

The Associated Press reports that Pres. Obama has named author Samantha Power to be senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council. The AP focuses on the incident that ostensibly led to Power’s departure from the Obama campaign, i.e., Power calling Hillary Rodham Clinton a “monster.”

Somehow, I doubt that a press still sharing Obama’s honeymoon suite will go beyond the surface chuckle of the Clinton kerfuffle to report — with a “ceasefire” in place and tensions still high between Israel and Hamas — that Power once advocated sending US troops to impose a settlement. Of course, she has said that she no longer holds that position. But her position may have changed, just as Obama has changed his position on having Power around.

Regular readers know that it’s been a pet issue of mine for quite some time to Deport the Criminals First. My point is simple: regardless of how you feel about illegal immigration, everyone can agree that the least desirable illegals — and thus the ones we should be deporting first — are the criminals. So once a criminal has served his time, he should be deported. Other than securing the border, ICE should make this its absolute highest priority — lack of resources is not an excuse unless 100% of ICE’s non-border-enforcement resources are already committed to this task.

I’m pleased to see that Obama’s new Homeland Security Secretary says she agrees:

If you’re a criminal and you’re not entitled to be in the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants you out of the country. Napolitano wants what she calls “criminal aliens” off American streets. She is looking at existing immigration enforcement programs to see if taxpayers are getting the most bang for their buck.

“That sounds very simple, but it’s historically not been done,” Napolitano said, speaking to reporters and senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials Thursday.

About 113,000 criminals who were in the U.S. illegally were deported last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. The agency estimates there are now as many as 450,000 criminals in federal, state and local detention centers who are in the country illegally.

Napolitano said she wants to improve data-sharing among local, state and federal facilities. So far, there are jails in 26 counties across the country with computer systems that can talk instantly with immigration systems.

The goal, Napolitano said, is for federal immigration officials to know whether an inmate is in the country illegally immediately after he is processed into a detention facility. After the criminal serves his or her sentence, immigration officials can be ready to deport that person right away.

This is a no-brainer — yet as Ms. Napolitano says, it hasn’t happened . . . with tragic results, as I have documented here again and again.

The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.

“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”

As required under state law, the lieutenant governor, Pat Quinn, assumed chief executive power upon the vote. To rancorous cheers, he took the oath of office for ceremonial purposes about an hour after the impeachment and gave a short speech that struck an upbeat tone.

“If all of us are cheerful, earnest, frank and honest,” Mr. Quinn said, “We can achieve great things for the land of Lincoln.”

A Connecticut Superior Court Judge arrested for drunk driving in Gastonbury, Conn., last October was caught on videotape using insulting language – including the notorious “N-word” – on a black state police sergeant who was assisting in the booking process. The judge was arrested after sideswiping a parked police car. Tests showed her blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit more than two hours after the arrest. The Hartford Courant began the story this way:

Repeatedly using vulgar and racial insults, Superior Court Judge E. Curtissa Cofield argued with a police officer — addressing him as “Negro trooper” at one point — who was trying to process her on a charge of drunken driving in Glastonbury last October, a police video released Monday shows. Cofield also is heard twice on the video using the racial term “n—–.”

Shocking, you say. Surely this story should have been picked up by the national media, with the result being that the offending judge resigns in disgrace after the tape is shown endlessly on the various cable news shows.

Well, no. You see, Judge Cofield is herself black and apparently held to a different standard. Though Connecticut’s Judicial Review Council has scheduled a Feb. 9 hearing to address charges of misconduct, the story has attracted little attention outside the state.

We’ve always known that Michael Hiltzik, the sock-puppeting “business” columnist, has ambitions to be a purely political pundit. Let’s take a look at a couple of passages from his recent “business” columns.

It’s proper to recognize that “experience” isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. Sometimes it’s merely a smoke screen for the hidebound, burned out or lazy.

Nor is it a substitute for judgment and intelligence. Just the other day we inaugurated a president who repelled attacks on his supposed “inexperience” by displaying intellectual depth and a singular maturity of purpose. The defeated ticket, by contrast, was led by a superannuated politician who seemed to have forgotten all the lessons of a lengthy public career and a running mate whose “administrative experience” cloaked a worldview so shallow it would drown in a wading pool.

No. 1 on the perp walk hit parade of 1987, for instance, was the arrest of three Wall Street traders allegedly involved in the big insider trading scandal of the moment. As news cameras rolled, one was led tearfully from his trading floor and handcuffed by agents of Rudolph Giuliani, then the federal prosecutor in Manhattan.

The charges against all three were dropped four months later. Who was the net beneficiary of this stunt? Only Giuliani, who gained a political platform that enabled him to infest our national politics for the next 20 years.

See, he’s talking about Wall Street there, so it’s “business.”

He’ll be back taking potshots at Hewitt and me and all the other right-wing bogeymen before you know it. It’s not personal. It’s strictly “business.”

SEARCH AMAZON USING THIS SEARCH BOX:
Purchases made through this search function benefit this site, at no extra cost to you.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.